


Second Chance

by LadyLoec



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Be Careful What You Wish For, British English, Declarations Of Love, Denial of Feelings, Djinni & Genies, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Gay Sex, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Grief/Mourning, Horny Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Post-Canon Fix-It, Resurrection, Romantic Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Wish Fulfillment, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher), Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:14:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28343733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLoec/pseuds/LadyLoec
Summary: With Ciri grown up safe and sound, Geralt takes the opportunity to seek out Jaskier: To right his wrongs and rekindle the friendship he always regretted wasn't more. But he is too late, and with Jaskier gone, Geralt falls into a dark depression, lamenting the life he never had. A chance encounter with the djinn from his past presents an opportunity for the thing Geralt wants most:A second chance.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 25
Kudos: 252





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in this fandom.   
> I'm English, so is my spelling. Prepare for extra "u"s in armour, colour etc, and I will resort to the thesaurus to avoid calling trousers "pants".  
> TW: Major character death (non-permanent), grief, suicidal ideation, a fraction of a second of dubcon.   
> Hope you enjoy :)

Geralt let out a sigh as he laid himself back onto the soft, familiar mattress. While Kaer Morhen might have looked inhospitable from the exterior, but inside it was warm and inviting in its own way – the lush furs and open hearths more than warding against the chill of the mountain. He had always considered it a safe haven, but over the past ten years while he had raised Ciri, it had become his home in a real sense, sheltering them both from the dangers of Nilfgaard as the timid child grew into a fiercely independent young woman. The princess was now a warrior to rival a Witcher: She was of age, lethal in her own right, and more than ready to face the world outside the fortress. Keeping her safe, clothed, fed, and cared for had occupied his every waking moment for so long, and Geralt… For the first time in a decade, Geralt was free to think about something other than his Child Surprise – free to want something for himself. 

He wasn’t surprised that his thoughts quickly turned to Jaskier.

Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer (who had reluctantly agreed to tutor Ciri in magic) had been cloistered in Kaer Morhen for a decade, but he hadn’t seen the bard in even longer than that – closer to fifteen summers than ten. Not since that fateful day upon Niedamir's mountain. Despite the hurt he had caused, Geralt couldn’t bring himself to regret what he had said or done – in its own way, his cruelty had been a kindness. If his words had been anything other than deplorable, Jaskier might have sought to repair their friendship, and that was a risk he couldn’t afford to take. A clean break had been the best thing for them both.

The Path was fraught with danger and hardship. Each hunt could be his last, and civilisation afforded its own perils in the form of superstitious peasantry who saw him as a monster in his own right. Comfort was a luxury rarely afforded: Witchers slept on hardened ground, bathed in ice-cold rivers, and ate their meat raw. It was a life meant to be lived unaccompanied. So when Jaskier came along, an effervescent spark in an otherwise bleak existence, Geralt didn’t know what to do with him. He bore Geralt’s half-hearted attempts to push him away with an irksome grace, touched him without a hint of fear, and made him feel more human than he had ever thought possible. And that was the problem: He had let Jaskier get too close, and in doing so he had put both of their lives at risk. That Jaskier had survived so many years in his company was nothing short of a miracle, the fact that Geralt hadn’t been gravely injured rescuing him from a situation he should never have found himself in even more so. Even though those years spent with the bard at his side had been the happiest of his life, they had been an inexcusable and selfish indulgence – even if it wasn’t for the danger, Jaskier deserved more than Geralt could offer. Letting him go had been the only thing he had ever done right by the man.

He had thought about him, though. Often. Often enough, especially on lonely nights, not to delude himself any longer as to the nature of his feelings toward the man. Geralt had known Jaskier had been attracted to him, at least in his youth – the spice of his arousal had been so prominent in the early days that he had half thought it a permanent part of his scent – but Geralt at least retained enough willpower not to encourage his interest (and when his willpower waned, there was a buffer in the form of his unnatural bond with Yennefer). Whether the bard’s attraction diminished over time or he just got better at hiding it, Geralt never knew, but he was thankful not to be faced with the temptation day in day out as they travelled together. Now, though, with a separation of years and miles, he allowed himself the indulgence of fantasy – remembering the feelings of the bard’s nimble fingers as they tended his wounds, his strong hands washing his hair, and wondering what might have been. 

Seven years ago, Eskel had brought him a pamphlet advertising a series of lectures at Oxenfurt, with an unsubtle suggestion that “it might be time to broaden Ciri’s education to more than stabbing and explosions”. Geralt had been about to throw it in the fire, when an entry halfway down the list hit him like a physical blow. The course was “Tall Tales and Folklore: Adventures in Storytelling”… delivered by Professor Julian Pankratz. Somehow, knowing where Jaskier was - that he was a mere several days’ hard ride away in Oxenfurt – was simultaneously a comfort and a curse. More times than he cared to admit, he found himself considering making the journey - risking the safety they had worked so hard for – for even a momentary glimpse of him through a fogged window or from the back of a crowded lecture hall. But he knew deep down that a glance would never be enough, and had never let himself get further than the stables before turning back, ignoring the knowing looks from his brothers and Yenn. He and Yennefer had a strained friendship, but as the only person he had ever let get close to him, she knew what Jaskier meant to him – probably knew long before he had ever admitted it to himself. Eskel had likely guessed after his reaction to that pamphlet, and Lambert would have learned from Eskel soon after. His companions all knew, but were wise enough to leave it unspoken while his efforts went into raising and protecting Ciri.

That was then, however. Now, with Ciri able to stand on her own two feet, things were different. Jaskier would be older now (a thought that made Geralt’s heart hurt) – in his mid fifties – he had traded the tavern for the lecture hall, had put down roots, would likely have settled down with a family… He wouldn’t be physically able to follow Geralt on his travels, nor would he likely want to any longer. Absent the danger of years past, and the ties binding him to Kaer Morhen and to Ciri, what was to stop Geralt from giving in to his desire to see him again, just once? 

The thought kept him far from sleep, and by the time the sun started to kiss the horizon, he had filled his saddlebags with rations and saddled the latest horse bearing the name Roach, unable to keep his eyes from glancing south-west towards what he had denied himself for over a decade.  
“Tell him I send my regards.” The cool voice came from downwind, which along with his distraction explained why it took this long for the smell of lilac and gooseberries to reach his nose.  
“Yenn, I can explain-”  
“I’m not pissed that you’re going, you imbecile. I’m pissed that you’ve taken so long to find the balls to do it.” He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. “We could portal you, if you’d like. Ciri could use the practice.”  
Even considering that Ciri’s inexperience with portals made for a slightly turbulent journey, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted by the idea of seeing Jaskier sooner. But in reality, he could use some time to gather his thoughts, and he hadn’t ridden any distance in so long he was starting to wonder if he’d forgotten how.   
“I’ll make my own way.”  
“Suit yourself.” Yennefer turned to leave.  
“Yenn?” She halted. “What if he doesn’t want to see me?”  
“He might not. Melitele knows I wouldn’t, after what you said to him. But it’s better to know than to wonder, isn’t it?”  
She knew him better than to wait for an answer, offering him a small smile before heading back to the warmth of the keep. Geralt considered her answer for a moment, before glancing back towards the horizon and continuing his preparations with renewed vigour: One way or another, he would know soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

The journey to Oxenfurt was uneventful, and once he was down the mountain pass, Geralt might even have enjoyed being back on the open road, if his every waking thought wasn’t consumed by what lay ahead. As it was, he had spent the whole journey playing through different versions of their meeting: Tears, anger, joy, indifference. He envisioned Jaskier’s violent, spitting fury, his exuberant embrace, him proudly introducing Geralt to his wife and children… He even let himself imagine that Jaskier might greet him with a fiercely ardent kiss, bruising in its intensity, followed by a night of passion. Suffice it to say that, after stabling Roach and stepping in to the university, he wasn’t ashamed to admit he was nervous. 

He had been here a few times before – the university library had a good supply of books on occult history and obscure herb lore that had come in handy over the years – but the building still retained an imposing and aloof air that made him feel like he didn’t belong. He ignored the feeling and made his way to the reception desk, where a bored, prim-looking woman visibly recoiled at his approach.  
“Are you lost, sir? The Ranger’s Guild is on Mandrake Street.”  
Geralt gritted his teeth – making enemies of Jaskier’s colleagues would be a poor start.  
“Actually I am looking for Professor Pankratz.”  
The woman visibly paled – probably trying to imagine how a refined, noble-born man like Jaskier knew a man like him.  
“Was he expecting you, sir?”  
Geralt bit back a retort at the woman’s prying.  
“He is…” Calling him a friend felt both overly familiar and yet insufficient. “We travelled together, once upon a time.”  
The woman’s eyes flashed in recognition.  
“You’re the Witcher – The White Wolf.”  
He fought back a smile – if the woman knew his name, it was likely Jaskier was still singing tales of their adventures. Perhaps he had even written more.  
“Geralt of Rivia.” The expression on the woman’s face was irksomely unreadable, but her scent shifted to something familiar: The sour tang of Fear.  
“Let me get the Dean for you, sir.”  
Evidently, the stigma attached to Witchers was something Jaskier hadn’t managed to dispel here, and he could see himself being refused and sent away.  
“Please. I just want to say hello to an old friend. I don’t want any trouble.”  
The woman swallowed audibly.  
“I think it would be best if the Dean-”  
“Enough.” She was hiding something – that much was obvious. Perhaps Jaskier had warned the staff that a Witcher might turn up one day asking after him, and had instructed that he didn’t want to see him. “I will see him with or without your assistance.” He went to walk on through the corridors – he would search every room until the familiar smell of chamomile, cedarwood and honey filled his lungs again – but was surprised when the woman reached out and grabbed his arm, a pained expression painting her features.  
“Please, sir. I’m not being obstructive, I just-” Geralt shrugged off her arm gently but forcefully, but her next words stopped him in his tracks. “Professor Pankratz is dead.”

Geralt couldn’t move. He forgot how to breathe. She was wrong – she had to be wrong.  
“I’m so sorry sir Witcher. I didn’t want to tell you in so public a forum, but-”  
“How?” His voice was rougher than normal, even to his ears. “When?”  
He didn’t want to hear it, but he had to.  
“A sickness – it spread through the city last Autumn, after the leaves fell.” _Less than six months…_ “His family-”  
“He had a wife? Children?” Perhaps his children shared his eyes, his smile – perhaps he could see something of his friend in them, at least.  
“No sir, I meant his family at Lettenhove. We sent word to them, but they have not responded.” Geralt could do nothing but nod. Jaskier had rarely spoken of his family, but from what little he did know, they were vapid and cruel – they had disowned Jaskier shortly before he had made his way to Posada. “There is a tree in the gardens he used to sit under to write – he was buried there, if you would like to visit him.”  
There was a quiet, furious anguish roiling away inside Geralt like the eye of a storm. He wanted to weep, to scream, to lash out and destroy until there was nothing left but ash and cinders. But there was nothing – nothing except the quiet campus and the woman’s kind eyes, and a grave to visit in the place where his friend should be sitting, lazing in the sun with his lute and a smile. He nodded again numbly, and the woman excused herself – presumably to find someone to cover her duties while she escorted a grieving Witcher around the campus.

He was too late. Never in all his daydreams, in all his postulating and imagining, had he entertained the possibility that he would be too late. He should have _felt it_ – felt the sudden absence of him. It should have echoed through the world like an earthquake. Instead, Geralt had likely been peeling vegetables, or mucking out the stable, or chopping wood, and he had been none the wiser. For six months he had woken up and gone about his day without knowing the world would never hear Jaskier sing again… He feared if the grief didn’t swallow him whole, then the guilt he felt at that ignorance would. 

Geralt followed the woman whose name he hadn’t bothered to ask without an upward glance, coming to a halt in a quiet, grassy glade – close enough to the campus that he could still faintly hear its bustle, but secluded enough to grant peace. She gestured to a tall tree whose leaves rustled musically in the wind, and Geralt’s body stumbled forward against his will towards the patch of earth that now looked to human eyes like any other, but Geralt could see the grass was newer, fresher. He knew what nourished its vibrant colour, and the thought made him sick. He barely heard the woman say she would leave him be over the sound of his knees hitting the ground. Geralt hadn’t cried since before the trials – he had long suspected that Witchers _couldn’t_ cry - but the wetness on his cheeks was unmistakeable. He sank his fingers into the earth in a desperate, irrational need to feel closer to Jaskier after so many years apart.

Hours later, his body ached like he had been fighting a never-ending nest of drowners, and his eyes felt worse than when he was suffering from potion toxicity, but in spite of crying until the sun was low in the sky, his grief felt boundless. He was aware of someone approaching, but couldn’t bring himself to care – let them see his weakness, he had no need of their respect.  
“Sir Witcher.” It was the woman from earlier. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I am finished for the day. Before I go, I wanted to give you this.” She placed a satchel beside him. “No-one came to collect Professor Pankratz’s things. The faculty got rid of most of them, but I saved these in case anyone came asking after him. I hope something here gives you some comfort.” She took a step back. “He always spoke of your adventures with fondness. I think he would be glad to know you came to him.”  
The ghost of a scent so familiar it made his soul ache emanated from the satchel, and for the first time in hours he drew his hand from the soil, clutching the fabric tightly.  
“Thank you.” He choked out.  
“Stay as long as you need. Farewell, sir Witcher.”

Shortly after she left, he heard another familiar voice.  
“I’m sorry.” Yennefer’s soft voice soothed at the rough edges of his grief as her hand came to rest on his shoulder.  
“Did you know?” Geralt didn’t think she had the cruelty in her to let him believe Jaskier was still alive when she knew otherwise, but he had to be sure.  
“I felt it when you found out, but I thought you might need some time.”  
Time was the last thing he needed – time was what had taken Jaskier from him.  
“Can you bring him back?”  
Yennifer’s hand stilled on his shoulder and she drew it back as if burned.  
“You know I can’t. And even if I could, you know better than most what horrors lie down that path – you have put enough of them to rest at your sword.”  
Of course he did. He had lost count of the number of undead aberrations he had slain over the years - screaming phantasms and soulless rotting carcasses, horrifying parodies of what they had been in life. He had always disdained those who had been selfish or stupid enough to try and cheat death, but staring at the ground where the most vibrant soul he had ever known lay extinguished forever, he had a new understanding of their desperation. He would risk everything for one more moment with Jaskier.  
“Then you are of no use to me.” His tone was cold as the earth. “Leave me.”  
He could feel Yennefer’s anger at his rejection, though she let nothing show.  
“You’re grieving, so I’ll overlook the slight this once. I’ll see you back at Kaer Morhen when you’re ready. Your _family_ will be waiting.”  
He couldn’t think about Ciri or his brothers. Not now, not with a gaping hole in his heart that felt like it would never close. He heard a portal behind him swirl into life and dissipate, and was alone once more.

If Roach weren’t waiting for him, he might never have left that glade. As it was, it was dark by the time he did, and he left a part of himself behind – and not just in the tears that watered the soil, nor the clawed soil, but in the wolf medallion he hung from a branch that overhung the grave. Vesemir would have had his hide for leaving it behind, but he could care less. Jaskier had walked the Path longer than many Witchers lasted – it was the very least he deserved.

It was when he reached the stables that he realised he didn’t know where he was going. All he knew was that he couldn’t return to Kaer Morhen; even if the concept of trying to go back and act as if nothing had changed wasn’t unthinkable, there was a hole in the world – one he would see filled, or die trying. He took the satchel he hadn’t yet dared to open and stowed it as carefully as if it was made of glass. The unmistakeable head and fret board of spruce wood that protruded were the only hints at what lay within, and Geralt couldn’t bear to think of the delicate fingers that would have caressed those frets only months ago. 

Vizima was home to some of the most powerful and reckless sorcerers on the continent – he would start there. He would either find a way to see Jaskier again, or he would fall on the Path as nature intended, and would see him on the other side. He set out on the road alone, feeling the absence at his side more keenly than ever, and went out into the world to seek his fate.


	3. Chapter 3

Four years later…

Geralt was none the wiser. He had grappled with some of the continent’s most corrupt and terrifying mages, each with their own nefarious ways to cheat death, and fought all manner of undead horrors, phantoms, and morbid corruptions… but he had come no closer to what he sought, save perhaps for becoming more of a ghost himself. He took a few contracts along the road in exchange for coin and information, but it was mechanical, soulless work, and the silence of the Path without his companion at his side clawed at his ears. He barely slept, barely ate; his reactions had slowed from fatigue. But what else was there? When the alternative was accepting… What else was there?

Desperate to drown out his absence, Geralt would occasionally take a room at a tavern for the sounds of life to fill the silence (and for the haze of drink to dampen his sorrow). As he settled in to this one – The Drunken Ox in… Some village he didn’t recall the name of - the scornful eyes of the peasant folk burned into him like a brand, but he didn’t feel it anymore. He almost wished he did, a new pain would have been a welcome reprieve from the old. Geralt’s focus was on the burn of the cheap grain alcohol in his throat, and he didn’t take any notice of the bard tuning their instrument and greeting the crowd. Why would he? Their music would be much like the tavern - blurred into one with the dozens that preceded it.

The moment the first familiar chord sounded, every ounce of Geralt’s attention honed in on the small stage. The voice was unfamiliar, but the song wasn’t: It was Jaskier’s. He had heard him sing it countless times, heard him piece it out in composition - Geralt had even made a small contribution to one of the rhymes in the bridge. It was a song that featured in a dozen memories of quiet nights around a campfire, raucous festivities, and everything in between, each with Jaskier’s bright smile and kind eyes.  
But now, with the unfamiliar voice ringing in his ears, Geralt’s blood turned to ice and the tankard beneath his fingers crumpled like paper, as a horrible realisation came over him…  
He couldn’t remember Jaskier’s voice.  
Geralt knew it was a warm baritone, that could convey joviality as well as it commanded a room. He knew that it had warmed him like a heavy blanket on winter’s nights. He knew that it shared both the musicality of his laugh, and the tenderness of his touch… But he couldn’t hear it in his mind any longer – couldn’t remember the sound.

He couldn’t breathe, and the sound of that voice – the _wrong_ voice – wrapping around Jaskier’s melody scratched at the inside of his skull; he thought that it might somehow entwine with the recollections he valued more than gold, and the thought of it further corrupting those worn scraps of memory scared him to death. He blundered to his feet in a blind panic, tankard and chair tumbling to the floor in a tumultuous crash. All eyes in the tavern landed on him at once, but he couldn’t have cared less. He stumbled out into the night, desperate to get away from the realisation that there was another part of Jaskier that was lost to him forever, and he felt it like the loss of a limb.

Geralt ran until his lungs burned and his veins swam with acid. His shoulder collided with a tree and he fell to the ground, pouring the contents of his stomach onto the forest floor. His blood rushed in his ears and his heart pounded like a drum, but he didn’t miss the air-cleaving sound, nor smell of chaos in the air that signalled the opening of a portal behind him.  
“I’m forgetting him, Yenn.”  
“I know.” Her voice was sympathetic and comforting, and he hated it.  
“My memories are all I have, and I’m losing them.”  
“Come home, Geralt.” She said it softly, calmly, but it was clear she wasn’t asking. “You can’t keep doing this – you’ll kill yourself.”  
“And what if I do?” He spat, standing to face her. “At least you’ll be free of this bond between us at last.”  
The slap of her hand making contact with his cheek echoed in the quiet.  
“How dare you. What would your brothers say – What about _our daughter?_ ”  
“Being a child surprise doesn’t make her mine - She never _belonged_ to me.”  
“And nor did Jaskier!” 

It hurt more than any physical blow could have, and from the shift in her eyes, she knew it. “I’m sorry.” He nodded numbly. Her apology didn’t change anything; it stung because it was true. “Come home. Please. There’s nothing for you here.”  
She extended her hand, and he didn’t want to take it. Taking it meant giving up - it meant accepting Jaskier was truly gone forever… But he didn’t want to leave Ciri and Eskel and Lambert the way Jaskier had left him. He took her hand, and felt the void of Yennefer’s chaos swallow him whole.

\---

Yennefer brought him to Kaer Morhen. Weeks turned to months, and months to years. Geralt ate, he slept, he cared for Roach (whom Yennefer had retrieved from the tavern that had played host to his last foray into humanity), but he did little else. He barely spoke, no longer trained, left his rooms only to tend to his horse… He was an echo. To begin with, his brothers had endeavoured to coax him to the great hall for meals or to the training yard to spar, but sooner or later they had stopped trying. Eskel delivered him meals, and Ciri – well and truly a woman now - visited occasionally, tears welling in her eyes that she refused to let fall in front of him. 

Yennefer hadn’t come to visit Geralt since she had delivered him home, and through it all, he felt her burning resentment. He couldn’t blame her – After all, to feel his grief through their bond must feel like a void in her very being. He therefore didn’t know how to feel when she appeared in his doorway.  
“Geralt, we need to talk.” He looked up at her – she looked as well put together as ever – he doubted her poised perfection waned even in battle - but he could see the weariness etched on her face – his grief was her prison. He knew what she was going to say before she even said it. “I need to ask something of you.”  
“You found a way to break the bond.” He said matter-of-factly.  
If she was surprised at his intuition, she didn’t let it show.  
“Yes.”  
“What do I need to do?”  
“It will be draining for us both, and I won’t tell you there is no danger in this-  
“Yenn, you know consequences are of little concern to me.” Her expression told him she did. “One of us should be happy. What do I need to do?” He repeated.  
She explained the ritual in basic terms. There was some chanting, some burning of incense in the shards of the djinn’s amphora, a little bloodletting, but it didn’t seem overly complex. After so long being bound, it seemed anticlimactic that the solution was so simple.  
“I’ll return in the morning with what we need. Rest well, Geralt. And… Thank you.”

The next day, Yennefer arrived with the sun, and set up a simple ritual circle in the centre of Geralt’s chambers. She took a long time arranging things just so, placing the shards of the amphora she had retrieved from the decaying mansion in Rinde meticulously in the centre of the symbols that had been drawn around the perimeter. When she was satisfied with the placement, she turned to Geralt in a wordless invitation. Geralt positioned himself as she had instructed, knelt opposite her on the other side of the amphora fragments. She gave him a curt nod and together they began to chant:  
“ _Odetnij łącze  
Zerwij więź  
Odwróć życzenie  
Uwolnij nas_”

Magic was routinely thought of as fast and mercurial, but in reality it was often a slow endeavour, draining of both stamina and power. Little happened for the first hour or so, except that the runes around them burned with an unnatural light, but eventually a wind began to blow around them. It was then that Yennefer reached for Geralt’s hand with her own, a dagger in her other. She pierced her own palm first, and then his, before placing the wounds together.

The ensuing blast was cataclysmic, rattling the very foundations of the keep. Geralt hit the wall with such force that he tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. The wind that had encircled them now raged like a vortex, forcing them both apart.  
“Yenn?” She was bloodied and, like him, her body was pressed against the wall with the force of the maelstrom, but she was conscious and alert. He had to shout to make himself heard. “Yenn! What went wrong?”  
“I don’t understand. It should have worked. I don’t-” She cut herself off. A look of recognition came across her face as a familiar shadow crawled up the wall. “The djinn… Geralt! The wish. The spell undid the wish – you need to make another.” A terrible shriek pierced the cyclone. “Now!”

Geralt had little time to think before the whole keep was torn apart, but he had to be careful – the wrong wish could have dire consequences. His closet door blasted open and his eyes landed on something that made his heart stop.

The satchel of Jaskier’s belongings lay undisturbed – Geralt had looked inside just once since it had been given to him; the bottles of familiar scents and the journals filled with delicate loops of Jaskier’s handwriting had done nothing but deepen the wound of his loss. Now, it appeared to him like a beacon – a sign from gods he didn’t believe in. Yennefer’s eyes followed his line of sight, quickly surmising what he planned to do.  
“Geralt no - you can’t.” Her voice faded in his ears as a fierce hope he hadn’t felt in years burned in him like fire. He had his chance. “Please, Geralt. Think about-”  
“Jaskier.” He hadn’t spoken his name aloud in years, and feeling it on his tongue again was both pain and revelation. “I want Jaskier – hale and whole.” He swallowed. “A second chance.”  
The wind stilled, dropping him to the ground hard enough to crack bone in a mortal man. There was a sudden and profound silence, broken only by Yennefer’s voice.  
“Geralt, what have you done?”  
But he didn’t hear her words, didn’t the pain from being thrown around like a ragdoll, nor the fatigue of the draining magic. Because every fibre of his being was focussed on the unconscious (but breathing – beautiful, deep, even sleeping breaths that were more melodic than any sound he’d ever heard) body at the centre of the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Geralt inhaled and if he had been standing, he would’ve been knocked to the floor by the sweet, familiar scent that filled his nostrils – chamomile, cedarwood, and honey. He stumbled to his feet without conscious thought, every cell in his body drawing him towards the sleeping form like a moth to a flame. Even though he couldn’t see his face, even if he hadn’t made the wish, even without the sweet scent filling his lungs, he would have known without a shadow of a doubt that it was Jaskier before him. He felt it – would have felt it across continents. He approached as tentatively as he would a wild animal, as if somehow moving with too much haste might break the spell. Jaskier’s brown hair hung over his face like a curtain, just as it had every morning on the road when Geralt had gone to his bedroll to wake him. His cheeks were flush with the warm contentedness of sleep, his full lips parted slightly and damp with breath. Geralt let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding – it was really him. Alive and beautiful and here. He wasn’t sure if he should let him sleep, but his impatience won out. Hesitantly, he reached a hand out to brush his cheek. 

Jaskier stirred at the contact, a small ‘hmm’ of wakefulness escaping him as he stretched, and his eyes slowly fluttered open to reveal deep oceans of blue (Geralt had forgotten just _how_ blue) searching and coming to consciousness. His gaze landed on Geralt, and he smiled – a smile so warm and bright, Geralt couldn’t help return a small smile of his own.  
“Hi.”  
It was only one word, but to Geralt it was so much more: That one word filled the voids of his mind like a tsunami, restoring Jaskier’s voice to his memory after so many years. He would have been grateful to the djinn for that alone.  
“Hi.” He echoed back. There was so much he wanted to say, years of unspoken words to be said, but now wasn’t the time.  
As Jaskier woke more fully, Geralt gave him some space to get to grips with his surroundings, shuddering slightly when he smelled the sweet spice of arousal tinge his scent. His pleasure was short-lived however, as the man seemed to become more confused as he looked around.  
“I- Forgive me, it’s not often I wake up fully clothed with a very sexy man touching me. I’d sort of assumed we had… y’know… But then I saw the rubble and-”  
“Jaskier – it’s me. It’s Geralt.” Geralt was taken aback – did Jaskier not remember him? His eyes searched his face for any sign of recognition.  
“Your eyes…” Jaskier’s hand went to brush his hair from his face, and it took all his strength not to lean into the touch. There was a flare of something in Jaskier’s eyes and he pulled his hand away as if burned “You’re a Witcher.”  
“You know I am. Jaskier you- I don’t understand.”  
“Geralt-” He had almost forgotten Yennefer’s presence, and evidently Jaskier hadn’t seen her either.  
“Fucking hell, how drunk _was_ I last night?!” Jaskier scrambled backwards, and Geralt’s heart sank: The man he’d risk the world for had no memory of him - thought he was some meaningless nightly conquest.  
“Yenn, I don’t understand. Why doesn’t he know us?” He cast an eye quickly to her, afraid to take his eyes off of Jaskier for more than a second in case his heart’s desire evaporated like smoke.  
“Look at him. Look at his eyes-”  
“Oh Kreve’s cock, what’s wrong with my eyes?!” Jaskier’s hands shot up to touch his own face apprehensively.  
Geralt could ask the same question – as far as he was concerned, the man in front of him was perfect. His memories may be compromised, but this was _Jaskier_. He looked at Yennefer with a fearful plea in his gaze.  
“No crow’s feet.” She said, her voice a disbelieving half-whisper.  
“I beg your pardon? I should bloody well hope not-”  
“Jaskier.” Geralt interrupted, as he looked more closely at the man he’d known for two decades. Their longevity made it difficult for Witchers to tell a human’s age – they could just about distinguish a youth from someone in their winter years – but even Geralt could see it now. “How old are you?”  
“What the fuck has that got to do with anything? I wake up on the freezing floor of some derelict castle with a Witcher and whoever the fuck you are staring at me like-” Jaskier shrieked and raised his hand in supplicance as Yennefer formed a blade with a shard of chaos and hurled it between his legs, inches from his groin. “FUCK! EIGHTEEN! I’m eighteen, alright! I’m too young to die. Please just send me back to that shithole in Posada and I won’t tell anyone, I swear.” 

Geralt sank back on his knees.  
_Posada._  
The reason Jaskier didn’t recognise him is because this Jaskier wasn’t his Jaskier – at least, not yet. Instead, he was the one that – days or perhaps even hours from now – would saunter up to him as he brooded in a corner, bold as brass, spouting some ridiculous line about having bread in his pants. This Jaskier didn’t have two decades of shared memories, shared stories, shared scars, even shared beds when money was tight.  
To this Jaskier, Geralt was a stranger.  
He knew djinn could be capricious and cruel, but this was so much worse than he could ever have imagined. To have this reminder – this ghost - of what he’d had, of what he hoped they’d someday be… It was devastating. And to have Jaskier looking at him with fear in those lovely blue eyes… Jaskier had never feared him, not for a single moment. Geralt couldn’t take it – he fled, leaving Yennefer to pick up the trembling pieces of the living memory wearing his love’s face.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun had set and almost risen again by the time anyone came looking for him in the dank, disused corner of the keep’s wine cellar (significantly depleted since his presence). He’d expected Yenn, or maybe for her to send Eskel, but it was Jaskier who appeared in his door. He didn’t look afraid anymore – for that, at least, Geralt was thankful – but he looked harrowed, like a man burdened with knowledge one shouldn’t possess. Geralt almost smiled at the bitter irony that he had probably worn that exact expression before Jaskier when he had gained a child surprise in Cintra, though all amusement was quelled with the realisation that Jaskier would never remember it.

“Yennefer told you the whole sorry tale, then?”  
“Yeah.” Jaskier picked up a couple of empty bottles before finding a full one, throwing himself down beside Geralt with a lack of finesse and a carelessness that he’d never seen Jaskier possess and taking a hearty glug. “Not much of a storyteller, the witch.” His bottle clinked on the stone floor. “I died.”   
He said it so matter-of-factly that Geralt winced.  
“Yes.” He drowned the wave of sadness that followed the acknowledgement with more wine.  
“Not now, but three decades from now.” Geralt nodded. “And you – we were friends – and you wished me back to life?”  
He swallowed harshly at the thought of how many times he had denied their friendship to his Jaskier.  
“I did.”  
Jaskier nodded. Geralt didn’t know how much Yennefer had told him of the details around that – the time that had passed, the bond they had broken, or that the wish had gone wrong – but if Jaskier needed him to confirm the details, he wasn’t going to deny him that.  
“We must have been good friends, then?” Jaskier was giving him the same inquisitive look he’d seen him wear a hundred times, when he was trying to puzzle something out that didn’t quite add up – when he thought someone was hiding something. “You had one wish after all. You could have wished for riches, women, fame…” Geralt looked at the floor so that Jaskier wouldn’t see the flash of pain in his eyes – this Jaskier would never know how much renown he had brought him. “What were we to one another, Geralt?”  
“We were friends, no more.” Jaskier was looking at him expectantly for the rest of the answer – even when he didn’t know him at all, Jaskier could see right through him. Geralt sighed. He had spent years regretting not telling Jaskier how he felt; with this Jaskier, there was no risk – no friendship to gamble and lose. He wouldn’t do it again. “I never let us become more.”  
Jaskier was still eyeing him with a quiet curiosity – unsurprising, really, seeing as Geralt’s past would have been his future.  
“Why not?”  
“Because I was afraid.”   
He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the complacency of someone with nothing to lose that let him answer so honestly.   
“So what now?” His voice was quiet, but stark in the silence. “If I wasn’t what you wished for, will you send me back? Leave me to pick up where I left off?”  
“I don’t know.” Geralt answered honestly. He didn’t know if it was possible, let alone what the ramifications might be.

Neither of them spoke for a while, simply drinking in a silence of shared helplessness and defeat. Throughout, Geralt could increasingly feel Jaskier’s body heat leeching through his doublet and Geralt’s shirt – both comforting him and filling him with guilt and sadness. Jaskier yawned, shifting uncomfortably. Geralt didn’t think he would survive Jaskier falling asleep on his shoulder without completely breaking down.  
“You should sleep.”  
“Learning of one’s premature demise is enough to make anyone never want to sleep again.” He yawned again. “But I suppose you have a point. Where can I… Is there somewhere I can go?”  
It was an exercise in masochism that instead of showing Jaskier to one of the empty rooms, he took him to his own.  
“Where will you sleep?”   
“Witchers don’t need much sleep. I’ll be fine.”

Yennefer found him some hours later, watching the hypnotic rise and fall of the sleeping bard’s chest. His bed would hold the bard’s scent for months. He caught sight of her in the doorway and went to meet her in the corridor.  
“I won’t say ‘I told you so’, but I hope you realise how badly you fucked this up. You should have known better, especially after Rinde.”  
“I know.” Geralt sighed. “I’m sorry.”  
“How are you coping?” He gave her a look. “Stupid question.” She sighed. “I have some news. And a theory, but I don’t want to give you false hope.”  
“Tell me.” She hesitated. “Looking at this ghost of him feels like losing him all over again. Please, Yenn.”  
“Look, as far as I can tell the djinn didn’t take him out of his time, he took him out of your memory of him. So there is no sending him back – there is no ‘back’ to send him to.”  
“I assume that’s the news. I hope your theory is better.”  
“He is a creature of your memory, Geralt. I think that if we can somehow unlock the rest of your memories in him, we may be able to link him to the real Jaskier from this world.”  
“That sounds far-fetched, Yenn.”  
“So does your dead best friend, barker, and love interest sleeping in your bed, and yet here we are.”  
He glared at her for a moment.   
“What do we need to do?”  
“I think that the key may be visiting places of significance to you both – places where cornerstone moments of your joint memories were formed.”  
“Yenn, that could take months, if not years. I’m not dragging the lad halfway around the gods-damned continent-”  
“You won’t have to. I can imbue a device with some simple chaos. It will have limited power, and will need time to recharge between uses – a day or so - but it should be able to portal the two of you to wherever you need to go.”   
Geralt hesitated. Even if the thought of spending days alone with the echo of the man he once loved didn’t make his heart hurt, even if there weren’t memories he didn’t want to face, this Jaskier still had a chance at something like a normal life. He could send this Jaskier out into the world and he could find a new muse – one that wouldn’t endanger his life or keep him at arm’s length, one that could love him as freely and openly as he deserved. It would be unfair to expect-  
“I’ll do it.” Jaskier’s voice sounded from the doorway where he now stood, awake and alert, wrapped in one of Geralt’s furs. “I mean, I’d like to try.”  
Geralt was torn.  
“Not all of the memories we share are good ones, Jaskier. There is no epic tale, no happy ending.”  
“Perhaps not, but… Geralt I lived an entire life I don’t remember: One of adventure beyond anything I ever dreamed. My own family disowned me when I was barely a man, and yet I had someone who cared so much for me that he risked everything to bring me back. That kind of life, that kind of friendship is a tale that deserves to be told. I know this must be difficult for you. I know I’m not… him. But I could be. I want to be.”  
Geralt looked at the youthful, starry-eyed hope on Jaskier’s face, and knew there was only one choice. He turned to Yennefer.  
“When can we start?”


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days while they waited for Yennefer to complete her preparations were excruciating. Geralt was ashamed to say he mostly avoided Jaskier (at least during waking hours), unnerved by the piercing curiosity with which the bard regarded him (and the spicy hint of lust that suffused his scent – Geralt knew that young men had a fire in their blood, but he didn’t recall struggling this much when he had first known Jaskier at this age). At Yennefer’s instruction, he had prepared Roach for travel and packed saddlebags with provisions – although they would be travelling great distances by portal, the onyx crystal talisman she had enchanted would need time to recharge between uses – almost a full day. That meant they might have to travel to find somewhere safe to stay the night, and - for the more remote or dangerous locations - make camp. The thought of spending days alone in the wilderness with Jaskier, with no buffer or distance, _terrified_ Geralt. It was such a different prospect from travelling with his Jaskier, where he used do his best to hide how he felt at all costs. This Jaskier knew of his feelings, and would be actively trying to evoke the memory of his own – what that would mean for both of them, he didn’t know, but he anticipated it would be near-impossible to achieve while protecting his heart.

Jaskier’s footsteps and scent made it impossible to for him sneak up on Geralt, but his presence still made him uneasy.  
“Do we really need all that stuff?”  
“Only if you want luxuries like fire and food.”  
“Best pack some water as well, y’know to counteract that dry sense of humour.” Geralt’s mouth twisted up in a small smile at the familiar banter – one that quickly faltered as he remembered that it would be familiar only to him. Jaskier had always had the restless need to fill silence – whether it was with words, postulated melodies, or the strum of his lute – so it came as no surprise that he spoke again first. “Ooh, if we’re packing rations, can we make _pieczonki_? I haven’t a clue how it’s made, but there was this maid on the estate where we grew up who used to make it for the farm workers. You know, on cold winter days, my sister and I would-”  
“Jaskier, is there somewhere else you can be?”  
Geralt cut off his rambling, not because he minded listening to Jaskier, but because Jaskier had told him this tale before, and it was painful hearing him tell it like it was the first time.  
“You mean like the ‘somewhere else’ I’m supposed to pretend you are when you come into my room at night?” Geralt’s fingers tightened in the leather at Roach’s flank for a moment. He knew it was an invasion of his privacy to watch him sleep, but the simple sight of his chest rising and falling and the sound of his breathing was comforting, and he quickly found he couldn’t sleep without it; he’d creep in after Jaskier was already asleep, and slip out before he awoke at dawn. Yennefer knew – she had caught him in the midst of his escape one morning, raising her eyebrow in silent judgement – but he was certain Jaskier had remained oblivious. Evidently not. “Super creepy by the way, but also kind of sweet I suppose.” He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. “Should I bring a warmer cloak? I’m sure I can scrounge something up in the keep that isn’t black or stiff with ingrained monster innards, although-”  
“You aren’t angry? Offended?” Geralt ventured.  
Jaskier shrugged. “I can’t say I wasn’t a little unnerved at first, but something about having you nearby is… soothing, I guess?” He fidgeted nervously. “I’m not sure what that means.” Geralt didn’t think it was bad, by any means, but it would only make things more confusing and painful if this didn’t work. “Can I ask you something?” He inclined his head in invitation. “Do you believe in destiny?”  
His lips quirked in ironic amusement. The version of him that Jaskier would have met in Posada didn’t. He would’ve said it was horseshit – that it was a fairytale told to make people find comfort in the belief there was an order to things. But now?  
“I think you would have to be a fool to have lived my life and not believe destiny has had a hand in it – at least in part.”  
Jaskier seemed to consider this.  
“Then do you believe it was fate that led us here? Or was this just a fluke – are we violating destiny in even attempting this?”  
It was easy to forget that this Jaskier was so very young; Geralt had lived for centuries before he had made peace with the hand of fate in his life, it must have been so daunting for Jaskier, especially with the weight of thirty years of life he didn’t remember on his shoulders.  
“One of the smartest people I’ve ever known once told me that each choice we make draws our destinies in closer – she called it a ‘vortex of fate’.”  
“That sounds terrifying.”  
“It is. Because it means that every choice we make moves us closer to our destiny.”  
“From what Yennefer told me, you and I hadn’t seen one another in many years when I died – she told me it wasn’t her place to tell me what transpired, but I surmised that we didn’t part on good terms.” Geralt looked down sheepishly. “I presume you – or I – chose not to reconcile?”  
“I did.” It would do no good to lie to him, not given the journey they were about to embark on. “But the wish I made was also a choice. Whether fate has a hand in this, I cannot say, but I think if she does, she merely sets the path: It is you and I who choose to walk it.”  
A soft smile played on Jaskier’s lips.  
“You know, you’re surprisingly eloquent for a Witcher.”  
Geralt felt his lips curl in a subtle echo of his smile.  
“Hmm.”  
Jaskier’s eyes dipped, a slight blush pinking his cheeks.  
“I should let you finish your preparations.” He turned to leave, and contrary to his only minutes before when his presence was almost painful, Geralt found himself stalling for a few more moments.  
“A warmer cloak would be wise.” Jaskier turned back with one of those penetrating looks that made Geralt feel like his every thought was laid bare. “Those fashionable wisps of fabric you like aren’t worth a damn when there’s frost on the ground.” _Gods above, by his standards this was practically babbling_. Jaskier gave him an all too knowing nod before the door closed behind him.

\---

Geralt probably should have warned Jaskier about the discomfort of travelling by portal – the roiling nausea, the disorientation, the horrible sensation of falling upwards – but hindsight was something he was still coming to terms with. Alarmingly, even fallen to his knees in the dirt, retching violently, fingers gripping at Geralt’s greaves in desperate search of an anchor in the chaos, Geralt felt his eyes subconsciously appreciating Jaskier’s form. The silken hair he wanted to run his fingers through, the curve of his back… he stopped himself there. That way lays nothing but ruin and the further complication of an already complicated situation.  
“Melitele’s tits, does it feel like that every time?!”  
“Only if you’re conscious.” Geralt deadpanned.  
“Perfect.” He took a moment to catch his breath before looking around. “Wait are we... This is _Posada_.”  
“Technically just outside it, but it’s good to see your ability to state the obvious hasn’t changed.”  
“Are-” Jaskier scrambled unsteadily to his feet. “This isn’t some elaborate ruse to dump me back where you got me from, is it?” Geralt detected an undertone of fear in his scent. Jaskier had always been one of the bravest men he’d known – willing to dive into the most dangerous of situations for the sake of glory and a fine tale – but especially in the early days, he had always been afraid of one thing: Rejection, abandonment. “I know I said at first that I wanted to go back, but that was before-”  
“This is where we met.” Geralt gestured towards the town gates. “Well, in the tavern, but I thought it best not to open a portal somewhere quite so populated. Come on.” 

Jaskier walked in something like a daze all the way to the tavern, sitting with a dull thud in the corner where Geralt put him. Seeing him sat there – in that same seat where he had sat so many years before – may not have stirred any memories in Jaskier yet, but it certainly evoked them in Geralt. His hands wrapped reflexively around the tankard Geralt handed him. It didn’t take a genius to work out what he was wrapping his head around.  
“If we met in Posada, then it must have been… How old was I when we met?”  
Geralt had known he would soon reach the same conclusion Geralt had, but it didn’t make this any easier.  
“Eighteen.” Jaskier nodded numbly. “I… That’s why I reacted the way I did when you told us your age. Because I think… I think the wish took you from just before we met.”  
“I see.” Jaskier’s voice was remarkably calm, but his hands were trembling around his ale. Geralt wanted to wrap his own around them in comfort. “I had been here just over a week, I think.”  
Geralt nodded. “I paid an unpaid tab for you – it was for around eight days’ stay.”  
“I had intended to pay that.” Geralt fought back a laugh. “So how did it happen? I’m guessing if you paid my tab, I didn’t spill a drink on you or anything.”  
“No, you didn’t.” Geralt smiled fondly. “Your performance wasn’t… well received by the other patrons. You spotted me in this corner and tried to initiate conversation. When I left, you followed me out of the tavern and I punched you in the stomach.”  
“Not the most conventional start to a friendship. But at least I didn’t try and hit on you.”  
“Actually you did. So badly I didn’t recognise it as flirting at first.” Jaskier’s cheeks turned a shade of pink he hadn’t seen since he told an angry husband Jaskier was a eunuch. “What I did notice, however, was that you weren’t afraid of me. You were nervous, but you didn’t fear me. That was… I may have ridden a little slower to let you catch up because of that.”  
Jaskier’s lips quirked upwards. “So I played badly, interrupted your drinking, clumsily flirted with you, and irked you so much that you resorted to violence… Doesn’t sound like the beginning of a decades-long partnership to me.”  
“I’m a Witcher, we punch people to say ‘hello’.” Jaskier’s smile finally reached his eyes. Geralt knew he needed to go further, needed to really let Jaskier in if this was going to work. “Did you know that across the many human lifetimes I’ve lived, I can count on one hand the number of people who have approached me without the sour stench of fear reeking from every pore.”

Jaskier’s eyes widened a little. “I’m sorry, skipping over the very tragically sad thing you’ve just told me, did you just say you can _smell_ fear?”  
He wasn’t sure if his Jaskier had ever known that – he had known that Geralt’s senses were keener, and Geralt had greatly appreciated it when he had swapped his strong floral perfumes and oils to far more subtle ones in concession, not just because it had stopped his headaches, but because unbeknownst to Jaskier, it allowed him to indulge himself in the delicate scent of his skin that lay beneath.  
“Not just fear. A person’s mental state, their emotions, can leave many markers in their scent. Contentment, anxiety, elation, sadness… Lust.”  
The pinkness in Jaskier’s cheeks flushed again, but this time not with embarrassment – not if the spicy-sweet notes spiking through his scent were any indication. He bit his lip which drew his blood nearer the surface of his skin, and Geralt felt like he might drown in the tempting fragrance. Geralt shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  
“And what does lust smell like?”  
The flirtatious, faux-innocent glint in his eyes was shameless – he knew _exactly_ what he was doing. Geralt swallowed hard.  
“We should get going.” It was cowardly, but true. “There is somewhere else near here we should pay a visit before we lose the light.”  
Jaskier didn’t push. “Right you are. Lead on.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Why did you bring a horse if we won’t be riding?”  
“I didn’t say _we_ won’t be riding – I said _you_ won’t be.” Jaskier’s speechless indignance at this revelation was deeply funny, but Geralt schooled his face into neutrality. “If we’re trying to jog your memory, it makes sense to do things the way we used to – you agreed to that.”  
“Yes but you never mentioned that I travelled our many adventures together on foot. Why didn’t I just ride alongside you?”  
“Because I never let you.” Geralt answered honestly. He omitted that it had initially been an attempt to drive him away, but that later it was because he found it much more appealing to travel the Path with Jaskier’s arse – shaped and toned by the miles of walking he did - visible ahead of him. “Well, except for that time you were dying.”  
“Excuse me, _what_?”  
“We’ll get to that. For now, less arguing, more walking. We’re losing daylight.”  
Geralt spurred Roach into motion, and Jaskier followed along reluctantly.

Jaskier’s sullen silence didn’t last long, and sooner or later he was idly chatting as he walked. Seeing Jaskier walking without his lute in hand sat ill with Geralt, like he was missing a limb, but his discomfort evidently wasn’t felt by Jaskier, whose free arms were gesticulating wildly as he told an improbable tale of heroics. The sun was sitting low in the sky by the time they approached their destination.  
“Is this where we were headed? Oh thank the gods, I think my blisters have blisters.” His eyes cast over the ruin before him. “What is this place?”  
“The site of our first adventure, I suppose.” Geralt tied Roach to a post outside. “But tonight, it will be our campsite.” He handed Jaskier one of his bags and took the two much heavier ones before brushing the vines aside from the doorway to grant entry.  
“Did you really just say we’re staying in the creepy and almost-certainly-haunted ruined building?” Geralt simply raised an eyebrow in response. “Right. Witcher. Not overly bothered with foreboding places that fill mortals with dread.” Jaskier reluctantly stepped into the building. “What did we fight here? Some kind of ghost?”  
“It wasn’t so much a fight as we were kidnapped.”  
“Kidnapped?! What kind of madman kidnaps a Witcher?”  
“Not a man. Elves.” Jaskier’s eyes widened. “Help me set up camp and I’ll tell you more once the fire is going.”

Teaching Jaskier anew how to set up a camp was an exercise in frustration. The last time he had travelled with Jaskier, Geralt had been able to entrust setting up the camp entirely to him whilst he hunted for dinner. He had forgotten how helpless Jaskier had been, and progress had been slow. Eventually, though, when they sat down to eat, Geralt had told the tale of how they had met Filavandrel. Jaskier had been wide eyed and enrapt throughout, and it hit Geralt like a punch in the gut that in all the years Jaskier had begged him for details of his hunts, he had never given him what he had asked for until now – a tale he bitterly hated that he didn’t remember for himself.  
“They let us go, just like that?”  
“Your song made it seem much more valiant, but yes – just like that.”  
“There’s nothing wrong with a little embellishment, Geralt. Music isn’t a literal interpretation of the facts. If it were, no one would listen.”  
“‘Respect doesn’t make history’?”  
“Exactly… Gods I wish I had my lute. I feel like this adventure into adventures will be a veritable gold mine of material.”  
Geralt walked over to the bags he had brought in and picked up the one he’d been trying all day not to think about. He needed to do this, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier.  
“You should have this.” Removing the satchel from the burlap and handing it over felt like a sword in the gut, but the way Jaskier’s eyes lit up at the sight of the fretboard protruding from the satchel was worth it. His hand reached out to take it but hesitated.  
“It belonged to him? To the other me?”  
Geralt felt a pang in his chest. “It belongs to you.”  
He took Filavandrel’s lute in his hand, examining it with the wonder the original Jaskier once had, before sitting by the fire and setting about tuning it – a sight so familiar it made his heart ache. It was painful, but it was also cathartic: Jaskier would have hated for such a beautiful instrument to remain idle for so long. He took his time, painstakingly tuning and oiling each string, handling it with the same care and attention his version used to use when treating Geralt’s wounds after a fight. After some time, when it seemed like he would finally be ready to play, he came to a sudden stop, a nervous laugh huffing through his lips.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“You know all my songs – likely better than I know them myself. Even the ones I’ve yet to write.”  
With the exception of any songs he had written since their parting, he wasn’t wrong. He had no reason to be nervous – Geralt would be happy with any old folk song, so long as it was his bard singing it – but he could understand his hesitation. He walked over to where Jaskier sat, relishing a little in the suppressed intake of breath that escaped Jaskier’s lips when he knelt beside him. He reached into the satchel and pulled out one of half a dozen worn notebooks, his thumb absently drawing across the binding as he recalled Jaskier’s quill scratching at the pages.  
“Here.” Jaskier took it from him, a curious expression etching his features.  
“This is my handwriting- These… are these?”  
“Your songs.” He huffed a sigh. “Best do one last check of the perimeter before we turn in. I’ll let you get reacquainted.”

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Geralt slept soundly, with the sound of Jaskier relearning his songs as a lullaby.


	8. Chapter 8

Their next destination represented a huge landmark in both their lives and their friendship. Even now, it wasn’t without danger, and it would have been safer not to include it, but it was too risky not to.  
“Ugh, so that disproves my theory that travelling by portal gets easier.” Jaskier’s knees shook as he struggled to his feet. “How in the name of all the forgotten gods are you still standing?!”  
“You get used to it.” Geralt drawled.  
Jaskier’s eyes took in the devastation around him.  
“Speaking of forgotten gods, it looks like all of them had a hand in smiting this place. Where are we?”  
Geralt took in a breath, the scent of charred earth and bloodied soil still staunch in the air after all these years.  
“Cintra.”  
Jaskier’s nose wrinkled when he took in a breath – evidently the smell was palpable even to a human.  
“What happened here?”  
“War.” He kicked at a piece of rubble that might once have been a part of the intricate marbled floors. “Terrible, pointless war.”  
“Aren’t they all?” Jaskier had a point. “Please tell me our memory here doesn’t involve some grisly battle?”  
“Just some festivities, a minor curse-breaking, and the meddling of destiny.” He reassured.  
“Festivities?”  
Geralt’s lip quirked in amusement – of course that was the detail Jaskier would be most interested in.  
“The Crown Princess’ betrothal feast. A well-renowned bard of our mutual acquaintance was asked to perform, and I attended as their overqualified bodyguard.”  
“Oh please don’t say it’s _Valdo Marx_.” He spat the name like it was poison. “Honestly if you tell me I had to watch that talentless fop perform his pedestrian repertoire in front of actual royalty while you fended off his ignorant devotees, we may as well give up this endeavour entirely, because that is one memory I never-” Geralt couldn’t hold his laughter in any longer. “Why are you-?” Jaskier’s face lit up in realisation. “It was me wasn’t it?” He all but collapsed to sit on the remnants of one of the pillars. “Melitele’s tits, I performed for _royalty_?!” Geralt nodded. “I don’t know what to say. I mean I hoped that I might find some modicum of success in my life, but… Wait, did you say you were _guarding_ me? From who?”  
“Cuckolded husbands. Try to pretend you’re shocked.”  
“Perhaps the only thing so far that hasn’t shocked me. Did you have to do that often? Protect me from jealous spouses?”  
Geralt didn’t miss that he hadn’t specified a gender.  
“Very. You were as untactful as you were prolific.”  
Geralt said it light-heartedly, but Jaskier didn’t smile.  
“If you harboured feelings for me, that can’t have been easy for you. I’m sorry.” Geralt didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. “What else happened? You said something about a curse?

Geralt did his best to relay the rest of the tale without missing anything important. He still found it difficult to think about what had happened here objectively. When Geralt had first discovered he would have a child of surprise, he had been ready to refuse - to fight the seemingly impossible notion of sharing his life with another person with every fibre of his being. But then, storming away from the devastation of the banquet, Geralt had come to a stark realisation when his eyes landed on Jaskier: He had already been sharing his life with someone for quite some time, he just hadn’t let himself acknowledge it. Of course, it took some years to fully accept the reality of what occurred at that banquet, but the importance of that night couldn’t be overstated. The fact that he cared for Ciri as if she was his own daughter was in large part down to Jaskier, but it was the crack this night put in the walls he put up around himself that made it so important: He had started to let Jaskier in.

Jaskier listened to the tale diligently, but evidently it wasn’t enough to stir memory within him. Geralt tried not to be disappointed as they made their way to somewhere out of the way to set up camp – it didn’t look like any Nilfgaardian soldiers had been here of late, but better to err on the side of caution.  
“What I wouldn’t give right now for a warm bath.” Jaskier dumped the pile of firewood he’d collected next to a tree and wiped his brow. “I swear the smell of pain and death still clings to those ruins.”  
He tried and failed not to think of the last time they were in Cintra together - of Jaskier sitting beside the tub as he bathed, the warmth in his blood that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water.  
“Tomorrow, maybe.”  
“What about the river where you got our water?”  
“The same water I’m currently boiling for parasites, you mean?”  
“I fear I may have overestimated the glamour of a life of adventure.” Geralt huffed a laugh as he poured dirt out of his boot. “Oh you’re only laughing because you can’t smell me right now.”  
“Actually I can.” The base, musky notes of Jaskier’s sweat were many things, but unappealing wasn’t one of them.  
“Ah yes, I forgot the slightly-creepy-but-kind-of-sexy scent thing. Well I’ll try my best to stay downwind until I can bathe again.”  
“I’d rather you didn’t.”  
Jaskier cocked his head to the side inquisitively.  
“Oh?”  
Geralt felt his skin flush a little at the neck.  
“It’s… nice.”  
Jaskier’s eyes took on that piercing quality they got when he was puzzling something out.  
“I see.” 

The silence in which they prepared and ate dinner was companionable, but there was an edge of something – Geralt wasn’t sure how his honesty had been received, but Jaskier wasn’t making any effort to stay downwind. If anything, he’d say Jaskier was sitting a little closer than the previous night. Geralt needed less sleep than a normal man on the best of days, and being back in Cintra had him feeling more than a little uneasy, so it was unsurprising that Jaskier had been the first to retire for the night. Geralt spent a short while attempting to meditate before giving up on his restless mind and resigning himself to a futile attempt to sleep instead. He checked on Roach before heading to his own bedroll, removing his shirt and sitting down on the log by the fire to unlace his boots, but he was stopped in his tracks by a sharp, sweetly spiced scent that made him shiver and his nostrils flare. He looked over to Jaskier’s bedroll to find bright, intense blue eyes watching him and roving his body with uncensored interest. The lust was pouring off of him in waves, and if he wasn’t sitting down Geralt feared it would have knocked him off of his feet. 

Geralt didn’t move – probably couldn’t, paralysed like a deer in the sight of a hunter’s bow – but Jaskier did. Without taking his eyes off of Geralt, he climbed out of his bedroll and, biting his lip in inviting anticipation, made his way over to where Geralt sat. His movements were graceful and purposeful in a way that made Geralt’s throat go dry, and he had to dig his fingernails into his palm just to make sure this wasn’t some lucid dream that had leapt from his fantasies to further his torment. Jaskier slid into his lap with a practiced ease, his knees bracketing Geralt’s hips, and the sudden contact brought him back to his senses.  
“Jaskier what are you doing?”  
The spicy, musky scent of his lust seeped into Geralt’s bones. He wanted to drown in it.  
“If it’s not obvious, I’m doing it wrong.” His tone was playful and dripping sex. His hand delved between them and slowly started to unravel the laces of Geralt’s breeches, fingers brushing against him where he strained against them. “I’ve never been with a man – not fully - but I _love_ to suck cock, and I’m very good with my hands.” 

Geralt’s eyes rolled back. His scent, the smouldering lust in his eyes, Melitele the heat of his _thighs_ through his thin sleeping trousers… it was too much. Too much and yet nowhere near enough. His body had responded, because he would have had to be dead to be unaffected, but the man in his lap wasn’t what he really, truly wanted. Oh he was tempted – he could pretend for a few hours, lose himself in the body beneath him, coax out all the sounds that had haunted his fantasies for decades… But in the harsh light of day the realisation would come that this wasn’t _his_ Jaskier – he would be reminded in the worst possible way that the man he loved was gone. Worse still, for Jaskier it would be a meaningless tryst, like the scores that preceded it, and come morning he would lose interest… Geralt wouldn’t survive that.  
“Stop. Jaskier please, I don’t want this.”  
“Could’ve fooled me.”  
He ground down against Geralt’s erection, sending Geralt’s eyes rolling back in his head. His body didn’t know better, but his heart did.  
“Jaskier STOP!”  
He threw Jaskier back – not hard enough to injure, but with enough force that he let out an ‘ _oof_ ’ when he landed on the ground.  
Geralt sprang to his feet and half-stumbled backwards, desperate to get some distance between them and some fresh, un-addled air into his lungs. Jaskier had pushed himself up onto his elbows, and his confusion and concern was evident.  
“I’m sorry, I thought you wanted-”  
“I don’t want you. I want _him_.” The rejection on Jaskier’s face, twined with what could only be pity, cut him like a blade. He couldn’t stand it. “Go to bed and stay there.” He spat, as he turned and stalked into the forest.


	9. Chapter 9

Geralt had run, cried, raged, but no matter the distance he put between himself and the campy, the scent of Jaskier surrounded him. He’d taken himself in hand and brought himself to completion (but not to satisfaction), the shame and guilt clinging to his skin like oil, before turning whatever he came across into fine rubble and splinters with his fists. The sun was peeking over the horizon by the time he returned to their camp. He found Jaskier sat by the embers of the dying fire – he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. When he heard Geralt’s approach and looked up, Geralt looked away, unable to meet his eye.  
“Geralt-”  
“Yennefer’s device has recharged. Get ready to move.”  
“Geralt, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I wasn’t thinking.” Geralt tensed as he heard him get to his feet. If Jaskier touched him, he didn’t know what he’d do. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you. It won’t happen again.”  
“No, it won’t.” Geralt said emphatically. “Smother the fire – I’ll ready Roach.”

Roach was as unaccustomed to portal travel as her companions, but her trust in Geralt and a little _Axii_ were enough to get her through it. Watching her eyes go blank as the unnatural calm washed over her, Geralt was jealous – wished that even for a moment, he could find that peace. He used to have something like it: When Jaskier would wash his hair or tend his wounds, his touch – though always tinged with wanting and regret - had soothed Geralt like a balm. The raw flames that had licked under his skin when Jaskier had touched him the night before had been the culmination of decades of repressed wanting, and it was a bitter irony that what had once comforted him now only caused him more pain. He shook himself out of his melancholy, and opened the portal. Looking over to Jaskier, he opened the portal and beckoned him over – if this wasn’t going to work, at least he could get it over with as fast as possible, so he wouldn’t have to keep revisiting these painful memories.

Jaskier handled the portal better this time. He was unsteady and still a little green on arrival, but at least he was upright. Well, mostly – Geralt put his arm out to steady him on instinct, but Jaskier pulled away from the touch as if it burned. Geralt could smell a mix of sadness and want on him that made him sick.  
“Sorry, I just… I don’t want to complicate things even more than they already are. Let’s just… Where are we?” He cast his eyes around as he unsubtly shifted the topic. “Nice house. Seen better days though. Is there anywhere we’re going to visit that’s still standing?”  
“This is Rinde. The Mayor’s estate, or it was.”  
“Rinde… I heard Yennefer mention this place.”  
“It was where we met her. Our first encounter with the djinn happened here.”  
Jaskier quirked an eyebrow. “Yennefer told me you two met at an orgy.”  
“Of course that’s the part she told you.” Geralt rolled his eyes. “I was having trouble sleeping. Had a lot on my mind: Child surprise, meddling destiny… A persistent and impossible infatuation.” He looked pointedly at Jaskier, whose cheeks coloured flatteringly in response. “It was rumoured an amphora containing a djinn had been cast into the river that ran past Rinde, and that’s where you happened upon me.”  
“‘Happened upon?’ Were we not travelling together?”  
“You had spent the past three seasons as bedmate to the Countess de Stael.” Geralt tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice, but from Jaskier’s expression he had failed. “You spent years flitting between travelling at my side and laying at hers. You had favour at her court, money, an adoring audience… I half expected to return from Kaer Morhen one Spring to find you wed.”  
“Perhaps it says something that you didn’t.”  
Geralt gave a wry smile. “That you were restless and preferred your partners married to someone else?”  
Jaskier shook his head.  
“That even when life was comfortable and I had everything I should want, I was drawn back to you.”

Geralt didn’t let himself think more on that – lingering on what might have been would do neither of them any good. They were here for a reason.  
“We argued – nothing unusual there - but I said something regrettable. To cut a long story short, I made a wish that put your life in danger. I sought out a healer, but medicine cannot undo magic, so he sent me here in search of a witch.”  
“Yennefer?”  
Geralt nodded. “When you live as long as we do, it can be hard not to tire of the stagnation. Boredom is inevitable. I have the Path, Yenn found her entertainment in other… physical pursuits.”  
“Hence the orgy.”  
“She saved your life at my behest, but it didn’t come free. She wanted the djinn.”  
“What for?”  
“That’s her tale to tell, not mine.” Geralt swiped a thumb over a dusted pane of glass. “You’d been hurt on my hunts before, but I’d never come so close to losing you as I had that day. I think that’s why I went against my judgement and your advice to go back for her – I couldn’t let her die when she had saved you.” Geralt rubbed the dirt from the window pane between his fingers. “When I got to her, it was too late. The djinn would tear her apart until I completed my wishes, so I asked for the thing I wanted most in life: Someone to share it with…” He glanced at Jaskier. “Someone who I didn’t have to fear losing.”  
“It tied her to you?”  
“It wasn’t what I had intended, but as you are aware, djinn take some poetic license when it comes to wishes.” _After all, that’s what got us here_. “You saw us together and it changed something between us. I think that’s when you truly gave up on seeking anything more than friendship with me. It was… I _thought_ it was for the best.”  
Jaskier looked lost.  
“So if the two of you have been together for all this time-”  
“We haven’t. We raised Ciri together but we haven’t been lovers since before you and I parted. And even when we were…” Geralt didn’t know how to express it. “Yenn and I found comfort in one another, at least for a time, but it felt forced. Because it was forced. It never felt natural, not for a moment. Not like...”  
“Like us?”  
“Like us.” Geralt affirmed. 

They spent some time at the manor. Jaskier asked some questions, which Geralt answered as honestly as he could without going into detail about Yennefer’s own motivations. It was emotionally exhausting – much more so than either of the other places they had visited – and he wasn’t sure if that was because of the memories Rinde held or because of how charged things had been since the night before. Still, tonight should be less difficult, because they would be able to stay in the tavern in Rinde rather than setting up camp. While Geralt would normally fight drowners in a sewer than stay in a town when it wasn’t necessary, for the sake of his willpower he needed a buffer between him and Jaskier, at least for the night. Tomorrow was their last chance, and it was the part of this journey he was dreading the most. Aside from the day he’d learned of Jaskier’s death, it was by far his most painful memory, and a place to which he had sworn never to return. 

“What do you mean there’s only one room left?”  
Rinde was hardly a tourist hotspot – it defied belief that the tavern would be full.  
“Apologies, sir Witcher. The ealdorman has called an agricultural summit to address the difficulties posed by last season’s drought. We only have the one double room available.”  
The only other tavern in the town didn’t take guests, so this was their only option.  
“Fine. My friend will take the room - I’ll stay in the stables.”  
“Geralt, don’t be ridiculous. We can share a room.”  
“And a bed?”  
On the occasion this issue had arisen before Jaskier usually found someone else’s bed to spend the night in, but Geralt didn’t think he could bear that this time.  
“One of us can sleep on the floor. Please, Geralt.”

He relented, if only because Jaskier would likely insist on staying outside with him in protest. After a quiet dinner, Jaskier readily accepted the offer of the first bath, which Geralt was utterly relieved by: He could live with the scent of Jaskier on himself, but _Jaskier_ walking around smelling like _him_ would have been torturous. He nursed his ale, trying hard to think of anything but Jaskier reclining naked in the bathtub upstairs. They had lived side by side for long enough that he knew every supple pane, every inch of Jaskier’s body, and the mental image of water running through the soft hair at his chest and down the smooth contours of his back; worse still, he could even hear the water moving. Still, at least Geralt might have some hope of sleeping in his proximity with his scent muted.

When the sounds of moving water had been replaced with those of rustling fabric, Geralt made his way up to the room to take his own bath. He knocked and waited before entering to ensure Jaskier was decent, but from the sight that greeted him, evidently Jaskier had a different definition of decency to his; Jaskier was shirtless, with water still dripping from his curls. His feet were bare and his breeches were unlaced, exposing the trail of dark hair framed by the V of his hips.  
_Fuck_. He looked like utter sin.  
“Sorry, I took my time a little. The water’s cooled off, so you might want to ask the innkeep-” Geralt twisted his hand in a burst of _Igni_. “Right. Or that.”  
The room wasn’t big enough to give Geralt any real privacy, so he did his best to remove his clothes and get into the tub with efficiency (especially as his cock was taking an interest in Jaskier’s state of undress). He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing in an echo of meditation. The water was almost uncomfortably hot, which – being a perfect mimic of the hot springs at Kaer Morhen - was just to his tastes; it took the lingering ache out of his scarred and battle-worn muscles and the ends of his hair curled in the steam. Jaskier’s scent lingered pleasingly in the water, suffusing the air with the delicate perfume of him. The tension from the past few days had worn heavily on him, and he let out a sigh of… if not contentment, then as close to it as he had felt in a long while.

“I’ll just… Um…” Jaskier’s voice hit him at the same time as his scent – a familiar lust, quickly mingling with sour notes of regret and remorse. Evidently last night weighed heavily on him, and Geralt empathised – it was like his body and mind had been at war with one another since Jaskier had reappeared in front of him, and trying to reconcile his emotions was exhausting. “I’ll just pop a shirt on and I’ll be out of your way. Perhaps I could perform for the patrons.”  
“You can’t perform.”  
Jaskier winced.  
“Ah yes, famous and dead. I see how that could present a problem.”  
He wasn’t sure whether it was the scent or the look of longing and melancholy that Jaskier wore that caused his moment of weakness.  
“Stay.”  
“I don’t want to intrude.”  
“You aren’t.” He took in a breath; the purpose of this trip was to bare his soul, wasn’t it? “He would sit with me - the other you. While I bathed.”  
“Just sit?” Jaskier asked.  
“We would talk, or more often he would hum, or sing.” He focussed on some unimportant detail of the wallpaper, unsure why this next admission seemed so intimate. “He would wash my hair, sometimes.”  
Geralt was never sure if Jaskier had known how significant it was for him to show that level of trust, or how much he’d loved (and hated) the feeling of the bard’s nimble fingers carding through his hair.  
“Can I?” Geralt’s intense focus on the wall broke and he looked over at Jaskier. There was a fresh wave of remorse. “No, of course not. Bad idea given the circumstan-.”  
“Yes.” It was difficult to tell who was more thrown by his answer: Jaskier or Geralt himself. But bad idea or not, Jaskier’s touch had been something he’d denied himself for so long, and Geralt didn’t have the resolve to say no.  
“Alright then.”  
Jaskier’s voice may have been soft with nerves, but the cadence of his movement betrayed nothing. He took the stool from beside the vanity and moved it over beside the tub. Jaskier was still half-dressed, which was distracting enough to make Geralt thankful that he would be sitting where he couldn’t see him.  
“Is there a scent you like?”  
_Yours._ “Anything. Nothing strong.” There was a clink of bottles as he selected a scent before the chair pulled up. He was so close Geralt could feel his body heat, and Geralt was thankful for the murky water obscuring the effect that had on him. He took the pitcher from the table and dipped it into the water, gently pouring it to wet his hair.

What followed was ten to fifteen minutes of purgatory that slowly and thoroughly unravelled every remaining shred of Geralt’s self-control. He had often wondered who had taught Jaskier the inimitable touch he used when washing his hair – it was somehow both firm and delicate, and more sensual and erotic than it had any right to be. Evidently, it had just been something he’d always known, as from the second his fingers slid against his scalp, the touch he used now was exactly as Geralt remembered it. His fingers were nimble and dexterous, but _strong_ \- so strong Geralt could feel the touch right down to his toes, which he fought not to let curl under the water (a fight he lost the second he felt a hint of nails scratching at the top of his spine). He hummed softly allthewhile and it pulled Geralt’s soul like the lull of a siren. To top it off, the scented oil he’d chosen was chamomile: After years of Jaskier using it to massage his sore and strained muscles (including, as Jaskier had never hesitated to remind him, some very intimate ones), the scent was so intertwined with those memories that it left him unable to think of anything else. Jaskier wasn’t to know, obviously, but it didn’t make things any easier. There was some heretofore undiscovered species of demon that had devoted itself to whispering in his ear: Telling him he should just give in to his impulses, should take what he wanted – what Jaskier had so willingly offered him. Should pull him into the water that already smelled of them both, slick him, and take him right there with the water pouring down the sides of the tub, soaking into the floorboards.  
“All done.” Jaskier declared softly.  
Geralt gave a curt _hmm_ of relaxed acknowledgement, fearful of what might come out of his mouth if he spoke. 

He thanked all the forgotten gods that Jaskier excused himself to the privy, giving Geralt a few moments to relieve his shame in privacy as he took himself in hand and spilled into the bathwater. By the time he returned (with 2 attendants in tow to remove the soiled bath), Geralt had dressed hastily into a plain pair of soft breeches and a loose shirt. Jaskier paused with the door half-closed behind the attendants.  
“I should see about getting some spare bedding.”  
He should. Because they would be sleeping apart. It would take a special sort of foolishness to-  
“Don’t bother.”  
Jaskier turned back.  
“Is that ‘don’t bother’ because there’s some in the cupboard, or-?”  
“We’ve shared smaller beds.” He didn’t remember it, of course, but Geralt did – all too well.  
“Is that a good idea?”  
The proximity, the warmth, their twining scents…  
“It’s a fucking terrible idea.” He admitted. He should take the floor, sleep in the stables, anything... “But I’ve had acted on worse ones.”  
Jaskier hesitated – the previous night’s rejection was clearly still fresh and raw – but his mask of bravado was back in place as quickly as a human could blink, a playful smirk spreading across his lips.  
“You’d better not hog the covers.”


	10. Chapter 10

It was the best and worst night of his life. Feeling the mattress beside him rise and fall with Jaskier’s breaths, being warmed by the heat of his body, near-drowning in the scent of his relaxed contentment… Geralt could almost convince himself it was real. He awoke to the damp heat of Jaskier’s breath on his neck and the bard’s leg draped over his own, spiced notes of morning lust creeping into his sweet scent… and a cold, harsh realisation:  
He couldn’t keep doing this, to himself or to Jaskier.  
It was cruel to continue to project the man he’d loved onto his younger self – desperate to cling to any fraction of him that was left and clawing for hope where there was none. Couldn’t let this Jaskier spend his whole life trailing after him in vain just as his Jaskier had. He looked over at the recharged black crystal on the dresser and swallowed thickly. Today was his last chance. If it failed…

He felt Jaskier stir and his breathing change as he came to wakefulness, hair beautifully ruffled and a soft, heartbreakingly dopey smile on his face.  
“Morning.” He stretched as he spoke, muscles pressing taut along the line of Geralt’s body. “Sleep well?” It was too domestic, too intimate. Geralt wanted to weep. Jaskier clearly read the concern on his face, propping up on his elbow to face him. “What’s wrong?”  
“There’s only one more memory.”  
Jaskier’s brow creased and he sat upright.  
“You don’t think it’ll work?”  
“I don’t know.” He answered honestly.  
“We can always try again.” Jaskier said hopefully. “Two decades of memories, there has to be something-”  
“If these weren’t the key, nothing was.” Geralt cut him short. They could chase their ghosts for years, but these memories were the most important moments in their shared lives. “I brought plenty of supplies, coin… You can take Roach-”  
“You mean to leave me?” Jaskier’s voice was small and meek in a way he’d never heard it.  
“It’s best if we part ways.”  
“Best for whom exactly?” The meekness was quickly replaced with ire. “Don’t I get a say in this?”  
“No.” He answered bluntly, getting up and beginning to gather his things. Jaskier had no stake in this; better a brief heartbreak than a lifetime of ‘ _what if?_ ’.  
“You don’t get to decide that. It’s my life!”  
“No, it was _his_.” Geralt spat. It felt like an echo of their argument at the campfire, and Geralt didn’t want what would likely be their last hours together marred any further. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. “Get ready. We have a journey ahead of us.”


	11. Chapter 11

Stepping through the portal, Geralt felt a nausea and turmoil that for once had nothing to do with the magic that had brought them here.  
“Where are we?”  
Geralt looked around at the picturesque landscape.  
“Hell.” _Or something like it._  
Niedamir’s mountain.  
This had been the last place he and Jaskier had been together. The last time he had seen him. His last words to him…  
He hadn’t even said goodbye.  
“I never imagined hell to be so beautiful.”  
Looking over at Jaskier’s elegant silhouette, dazzling blue eyes enrapt with the natural splendour around him, Geralt couldn’t help but agree.  
“Come on.”

Because of the danger of shifting rock and erosion, Geralt had transported them to a relatively safe area some way up the mountain – they would have to make the rest of the journey on foot. They travelled mostly in silence, Jaskier’s uncharacteristic solemnity pouring off of his scent like oil in a way that only reinforced Geralt’s resolve – the idea of being the cause of his misery for a moment longer than he needed to was abhorrent. Geralt took Roach as far as was practical, before finding a sheltered and shaded spot to leave her when they reached the narrower, more uneven paths. There was a brief pause for respite and a meal when the sun was high in the sky, but in the cold aftermath of this morning, neither of them wanted to drag this out.

The sun was low in the sky when they reached the plateau. Geralt walked up to the edge, looking out over the chasm. He took in the way the colours of the sunset bled into the sky, casting an alluring glow over the horizon. He felt the last stray caress of warmth from the fading sun, the harsh wind prickling his skin… Geralt had seen thousands upon thousands of sunsets, but he wanted to take a moment to appreciate this one. He hadn’t given up hope completely; if this worked, if they sparked that one moment of perfect recollection that unlocked Jaskier’s memories, then he would devote his life to making amends. But if it didn’t work, then this sunset would be his last: He would give Jaskier the farewell he had deserved the first time around, listen until his footsteps disappeared from earshot, and let the mountain take him. Everything came down to this, but it was a strange relief to know that no matter what happened here, he wouldn’t have to live another day without his beloved beside him. 

“It’s peaceful here.” Jaskier said, approaching him. “But if your melancholy is any indication, the memory here isn’t a happy one.”  
“This is the last place we were together.”  
“I presume our parting wasn’t amicable.” Geralt lowered his head in regretful acknowledgement. “What happened?”  
“We were hunting a dragon.” Jaskier’s eyes widened. “It didn’t quite work out that way – sorry to disappoint.” A small smile almost broke through his melancholy at the bard’s obvious war with his own curiosity as he wanted to know the tale behind the dragon. “Some of those who travelled with us died just before we made camp here, or at least I thought they did. I was brooding, as you would call it.” He made his way over to the log where they had sat together. “You sat beside me here, and you offered to take me from my path – to ‘get away for a while’, you said.” He wrung his hands. “You said that life was too short, and that you were trying to work out what pleased you. It was the closest you ever came to-” He took in a steadying breath to halt the tears that threatened to fall. “To saying you felt something for me.”  
“Surely that was a good thing?”  
Geralt shook his head. “That’s when I realised how badly I’d failed you. That you would follow me until it killed you or until you could follow no longer. My selfishness in keeping you around denied you a chance at a real life.”  
“That’s not true. I - the other me – he made his own choices. And it sounds to me that a life with you was exactly the life he wanted.”  
“It wasn’t the life he deserved. I couldn’t let him throw himself away on me.”  
“Is that why we parted? From the sounds of things, it may have been the most overt rejection but it was hardly the only one. It can’t be the only reason.”  
Geralt scrubbed his face with his hand. He’d lived their final days over and over like a living nightmare for years, but somehow saying it aloud was harder.  
“Yennefer was here on her own quest. I went to her, after…” He’d never felt true shame until this moment. “You offered your heart, and I answered by sleeping with her.”  
Jaskier swallowed – there was pain in his eyes, a profound sadness in his scent.  
“I see.”  
He didn’t. How could he, when even Geralt didn’t fully understand it? Geralt and Yennefer’s bond meant they were driven together – it was natural he would fall into her in his turmoil, but it wasn’t because he _wanted_ to. Not the way he wanted Jaskier.

“I hoped it would drive you away, but it didn’t. And that’s not all.” _Like cauterising an infected wound – get it over with_. “It was here Yenn discovered that the djinn had bound us – that I’d taken her choice, just as others had so many times before. We fought, she left. Even after what I’d done, you came to comfort me.” Geralt couldn’t look at him. He thought if he did, he might turn to stone. “I couldn’t bear it – I lashed out. I blamed you for everything that had gone wrong in my life – the djinn, Ciri, all of it. I told you-” A lone tear tracked its way down his cheek. He wanted nothing less than to say the words again, but he had to – he owed it to both of them. “I said ‘If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands’.” His tears flowed freely, and from the quiet sniffing he could hear, so did Jaskier’s. “I thought if I was cruel enough, it would end things for good. We parted ways because I hurt you to spare you from my weakness.”  
Jaskier knelt down beside him and embraced him as their tears fell. There was no momentous spark of magic, no surge of chaos, but for one brief moment Geralt thought perhaps it had worked. But when Jaskier leaned back, brushing a tear from Geralt’s cheek, he knew from his eyes that it hadn’t.  
“You did what you thought was best for him, even though it hurt you both. That’s not weakness.” His voice was gentling, soothing.  
“It didn’t work, did it?” It would have been easy to think that Geralt’s calmer tone was a result of Jaskier’s comfort, but it was resignation. His eyes flicked over Jaskier’s shoulder to the cliff edge. It would be over soon. “You don’t remember.”  
Jaskier shook his head sadly.  
“I’m sorry.” _Not as sorry as I am_ , he thought wistfully. “It doesn’t have to end here.” For a horrible moment, Geralt thought Jaskier had somehow sensed his intentions. “I might not have his memories, but still have a chance at a life together, Geralt. The life you never got to have with him.”  
Geralt pushed his shoulders away gently.  
“I asked the djinn for a second chance. Maybe that’s what he granted: A second chance. Just not for me.” He stood and put a little space between them. “Maybe this is your chance to live a life outside of my shadow.”  
“And your chance to move on?”  
Geralt was a shitty liar, so he just nodded. Fumbling in his pocket, his fingers wrapped around the smooth dark crystal and he withdrew it, handing it to Jaskier. “Here, take this back to Roach. It should recharge enough overnight to take you both wherever you want to go.”  
Jaskier looked crestfallen for a moment before a determinedly neutral look made its way onto his face – heartbreakingly similar to the one he had worn when Geralt had said those awful things to him so many years ago.  
“I suppose that’s it, then.” He stood, brushing the soft dirt from his knees with a familiar feigned nonchalance. Geralt’s eyes flicked determinedly back to where the faint glow of the sun’s descent peeked over the cliff. _Not long now_. “It has been an honour to know you. I hope that you can find your way back to happiness.” Jaskier paused for a moment, likely waiting for Geralt to say something, but he remained silent. “Right, then I’ll just-” He palmed the crystal. “Right.” 

Jaskier stepped away, brow creasing a little in concentration as he visualised his destination as Yennefer had instructed. Wind whipped through Geralt’s hair and dried the tears that lingered on his cheek as the portal came into being behind Jaskier.  
“See you around, Geralt.”

It felt like the world had stopped turning.  
_See you around, Geralt_.  
Geralt had thought he had experienced the worst heartbreak a man could feel, but until this moment he had been wrong. Of all the parting words Jaskier could have chosen, none could have hurt him the way these did. History was repeating itself before his eyes, and he couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t watch him walk away again. It struck him like an arrow to his chest:  
He had been _wrong_.  
This wasn’t about a second chance with Jaskier, or a second chance for Jaskier to live a life without Geralt. It was a chance not to repeat his mistakes: A second chance at _this very moment_.  
One that Geralt took without a second’s hesitation. 

His body moved without conscious thought, the pull towards Jaskier stronger than gravity. Jaskier must have heard him move, as he turned to face him with a questioning expression.  
“Geralt, wha- _mmpf_.” Jaskier’s questioning was cut off as Geralt’s lips crashed into his with all the desperation of a man who had lost everything once and had no intention of doing so again. With Jaskier caught off guard and the fierceness of Geralt’s need, it was far from perfect – bad positioning, unstable footing, too much teeth – but it felt so undeniably _right_. Jaskier froze, and for one horrible moment Geralt feared he had gone too far or waited too long, but before he had the chance to pull back and gauge his mistake, it was like a fog had lifted: Jaskier relaxed into the kiss, his body practically melting against Geralt’s. The portal closed behind him as the crystal fell forgotten to the floor and Jaskier brought his hands up to pull him closer. Geralt couldn’t be sure if the wetness on his cheeks came from him or Jaskier, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, because Jaskier was kissing him _back_ … With a suddenness that shocked him, Jaskier pulled away and slapped him hard enough to send him reeling, before pulling him back into a bruising, needful kiss that was so filled with passion and wanting it stole his breath. His scent was suffused with so much emotion that it almost knocked Geralt flat on his back – layers of lust and regret and relief and hurt and yearning that all blurred together.  
_A lifetime of emotion._

Geralt reluctantly pulled back, he had to be certain – had to know for sure.  
“Jaskier?” He asked, tentatively. But he didn’t need to wait for an answer – one look at Jaskier’s eyes told him everything he needed to know.  
“You’re masochistic, and manipulative, and you’d better keep kissing me so I don’t remember how incredibly furious I am with you.”  
Geralt couldn’t help the disbelieving, ecstatic laugh he breathed against Jaskier’s lips as he was pulled back in to the near-violent passion of their kiss. Somehow with it, Jaskier managed to convey everything he was feeling – anger, desire, frustration, elation – but above all, _love_. Love so resolute and overwhelming in it’s intensity that Geralt felt it in his bones, in every dark forgotten corner of his soul. It threatened to break his heart anew that Jaskier had concealed this for so long, had buried it deep and locked it away – unwilling to stake his heart against the fragile friendship that Geralt had barely tolerated. 

Just as Geralt was readying himself to announce his new unwavering determination that he would lavish Jaskier in his affection for every moment of their new life together, what was left of his sanity was ravaged by a sweep of Jaskier’s tongue over his lips, begging entrance. Suddenly, the heartfelt passion of their reunion became another sort of passion entirely as Jaskier took the reins, and the salty scent of shed tears turned deep, musky and spiced with lust. The haze of it filled Geralt’s lungs with every deepened breath, and _gods above_ , when he moaned into Geralt’s mouth, Geralt thought he might burn alive from the flames under his skin. Jaskier slid one hand into his hair, tightening his fingers against his scalp in a way that had Geralt’s cock filling so fast he feared he might faint, the other hand sliding down over his arse and pressing him into Jaskier’s body with no small amount of vigour. At once, the kiss became fierce with a lust they had both denied for _decades_.  
“We should talk.” Geralt ground out through gritted teeth. _Preferably before I lose all semblance of reason._  
“We should.” Jaskier breathed against his lips. “Later.” He led a trail of kisses down Geralt’s jaw to his throat. “Much, much later.”  
With Jaskier’s lips – and, Melitele’s mercy, _teeth_ – grazing his neck, he couldn’t help sharing the sentiment. But-  
“It’ll be dark soon. We need a fire.”  
“So keep me warm.”  
“We need shelter.”  
“We’ll be fine.” Jaskier’s tongue teased at the shell of his ear.  
“Oil.” Geralt gasped. “We need oil!”  
That seemed to bring Jaskier back to his senses. He took in a deep breath and rested his forehead on Geralt’s shoulder.  
“I hate it when you’re right.” A soft smile with an inevitable tinge of disappointment slid across his features as he pulled back, hands sliding against the front of Geralt’s tunic (as if now he was allowed to touch, he never intended to stop). “We’ve waited this long, what’s one more night?”  
There was a sound (more like a sudden absence and presence of sound?) from behind Jaskier, and when Geralt looked up, a familiar-looking tent stood there.  
“I think a mutual friend disagrees.” He inclined his head and Jaskier walked over. There was note pinned to the door in a flowing, elegant script.  
_‘For the love of Huldra, get on with it – Y’_  
“Well, having your ex watching our every move isn’t at all weird or off-putting.”  
“If you’d rather wait until we reach the nearest town-”  
Before he could finish his sentence, urgent fingers tangled in his tunic, dragging him through the opening.

The extradimensional space was as warm, welcoming, and spacious as Geralt remembered, but with Jaskier’s hands and lips on him again, he would have been as happy in a mouldering old tent as in the most opulent palace on the continent. Yennefer’s tent had been spelled to cater to its occupant’s every whim, and from the large, soft bed lined with furs and silks at its centre, it was evident its magic was still as intuitive as ever. Jaskier’s dextrous fingers made short work of his tunic and bandolier, and he couldn’t bring himself to care when his swords fell to the floor in an unceremonious clatter. His hands drank in Jaskier’s form – a little softer, less lean with muscle than it had become in later years, but still firm and warm beneath his hands. Jaskier had assisted Geralt in donning and doffing his armour for years - used to working around wounds and caustic monster fluids – and he could undo every hook, lace and buckle on him without so much as a glance. When he felt Jaskier’s fingers at the laces straining over his cock, his restraint escaped him as he tore Jaskier’s tunic clean off, pressing him back onto the bed with no small amount of urgency. Jaskier responded to Geralt’s passion in equal measure, the fingers of one hand slipping into Geralt’s hair as his other continued to work at the laces of his breeches. When he tightened his fingers against Geralt’s scalp and scraped his teeth against his lip as he began to palm his now-unbound cock, Geralt let out a desperate whine: This man would be the death of him, and he resolved to ruin him just as effectively in return.

Geralt moved down Jaskier’s torso, laying a trail of hot, open mouthed kisses down his heaving chest. His little gasps of pleasure were sweeter than mead, and Geralt wanted more. He settled between Jaskier’s thighs, loosening the ties at his waist and pushing both his trousers and braies down his thighs; he delighted in the way his flushed cock lay heavy against his stomach, nestled against a trail of dark hair. It felt even better in his hand – hot and thick, a pearl of precome starting to bead at the tip. Geralt reached into the sumptuous fabric that surrounded them, and sure enough the magic provided exactly what he was looking for as his fingers clasped around a cool vial; he poured a little over his fingers, giving it a moment to warm. Jaskier let out a breathy litany of swear words that would make a Skelligan sailor blush as Geralt took him in his mouth, his fingers slipping between his cheeks mere seconds later.

Jaskier’s hips bucked up reflexively, seeking more of the warm, wet heat of Geralt’s mouth, but Geralt held him down firmly as his fingers slid against his hole. Slowly, teasingly, he circled his rim before slipping one digit in up to the knuckle. Clearly, dissatisfied with the slow progress, Jaskier bore down on his finger, and winced.  
“Slow.” Geralt soothed, as if calming a spooked horse. He knew why Jaskier was caught off-guard. “You’ve… Remember, this body has never…”  
“Fuck.” Jaskier laughed in frustrated disbelief. “All those years lusting after that phenomenal beast between your legs, and now I have the chance, it’s-”  
“As a blushing virgin?”  
Jaskier slapped his shoulder indignantly.  
“How dare you-”  
“You could always fuck me.” Geralt interrupted, moving up to lay over Jaskier so they could speak more easily. He knew a little of Jaskier’s… preferences: Tavern walls were thin, and with Witcher hearing, little had been left to the imagination. He’d spent many an evening shamefully stroking his own cock as the sounds of Jaskier’s pleasure rang through the walls – knew the difference between the short, punched-out breathy moans he made when he was the one topping, and the needy, almost whorish whines of pleasure when he was taking a cock. Geralt had always imagined himself in the place of Jaskier’s partner, whichever role they took, and with Jaskier’s reputation as a lover... He’d never trusted another man enough to put himself in a position of that kind of vulnerability, but the idea of it being Jaskier taking him was one he’d quietly enjoyed for almost as long as he’d known the man, and while Jaskier certainly had nothing to be ashamed of in that department, he was nowhere near as “blessed” as Geralt.  
“Don’t get me wrong, we’re _definitely_ revisiting that idea later, because _fuck_ , but-” He reached between Geralt’s legs, palming the achingly hard length between them. “I’ve wanted this in me since the first time I caught a glimpse of you bathing.” He swept his thumb over the head of his cock, swiping wetly over the sensitive skin, and Geralt’s eyes rolled back. “I’ll settle for nothing less tonight.”  
Geralt flicked the cork back out of the vial, slicking his fingers with more oil.  
“Then I’ll go easy on you.” He murmured against Jaskier’s neck.  
“Don’t you dare.”

He worked Jaskier open slowly and thoroughly, and between the urgency of their desire and Jaskier’s own oiled hand between them stroking both of their cocks together, it more than tested his restraint. Jaskier’s stuttered rhythm when he added another finger or when he stroked against his sweet spot was a thing of beauty, and Geralt couldn’t remember ever enjoying foreplay like this (even in spite of Jaskier’s occasional frustration at their slow progress). When Geralt had three fingers buried to the hilt in him, curling against his prostate, it was clear from the needy sound Jaskier made that he could wait no longer, and nor could Geralt.

It couldn’t have sounded more cliché if he’d tried, but sliding into Jaskier was like coming home. He went slowly, trembling with restraint as Jaskier’s body warmed to the intrusion. It was slick and hot and _tight_ – so impossibly tight Geralt could hardly breathe. Jaskier’s own breathing was laboured, yet he clawed at Geralt’s back as if trying to pull him closer, deeper – like he wanted to take everything Geralt had to give and more. When he was finally, _finally_ fully seated inside of him, he let out a harsh breath against Jaskier’s neck. He could feel Jaskier’s pulse through his walls. He experimentally ground against him, taking no small amount of pleasure from the way it made Jaskier grab his arse and clench on him (not to mention that he could possibly feel any tighter than he already had defied probability), taking Jaskier’s obvious enjoyment as his cue to start moving in earnest.

Geralt moved slowly but purposefully, with deep, languorous strokes and equally deep kisses, and after the first few thrusts Jaskier moved to match him. He had a natural rhythm you would expect from a musician, but what Geralt hadn’t anticipated was the vigour – his movements were strong, powerful, commanding. He was also _vocal._  
_Fuck, you feel so fucking good.  
So big.  
Harder, please – harder.  
Oh gods, right there, fuck yes._  
All interspersed with those toe-curling sounds that had haunted Geralt’s dreams for years. It was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard Jaskier sing, and it was all for him. 

Sweat beaded on their skin as they moved in tandem. He briefly wondered if there was a hint of incubus or succubus somewhere in Jaskier’s ancestry to account for the sinful undulation of his hips. Jaskier’s thighs bracketed Geralt’s hips, fingers of one hand still digging into the meat of his arse with near-bruising tenacity, while the other hand had moved into Geralt’s hair. Geralt hummed his appreciation against Jaskier’s mouth when nails scratched at his scalp, his cock pulsing hard in response. Jaskier’s cock was leaking copiously between them, flushed red and untouched, and part of Geralt wanted to see if he could make him come with nothing but a well-aimed thrust at that sweet nexus of nerves inside him… But there would be time enough for such games later. Sliding a sword-callused hand between their bodies, he swallowed Jaskier’s moan when he wrapped his fingers hard around his length and squeezed. Jaskier’s back arched as he impossibly fought to chase both sensations, lining Geralt up for a stroke right against his prostate that had him whining in desperation, a fresh flood of precome wetting Geralt’s thumb. His eyes opened to silently implore Geralt to hasten his end, and he could deny him nothing. Geralt slid his fist over him and in two rough strokes, Jaskier was screaming his climax against Geralt’s lips.

Jaskier’s strength continued to surprise him when, with barely a moment’s respite, he flipped them over and mounted him, sinking back down onto Geralt with a consummate ease. It was more than clear he’d found his stride with his younger body; Jaskier fucked like Geralt fought – like a master of the art – and he took his pleasure as readily as he gave it. He set a faster pace than Geralt had, but the intensity remained, chasing Geralt’s pleasure as fiercely as he had his own. He bracketed Jaskier’s hips with his hands, Jaskier’s own release still damp on his skin, and roved his hands up and down his body with a blatant appreciation. In spite of what must be significant overstimulation, he squeezed Geralt as he rolled his hips, and Geralt was powerless to stop his own orgasm from crashing over his body with a near-violent force, warm release flooding into Jaskier as he tensed above him.


	12. Chapter 12

“We need a bath.” As soon as Jaskier had finished the thought, there was a metallic tang of magic in the air as a bathtub easily big enough for two materialised in the corner of the tent, tendrils of fragrant steam rising from its surface. “I love this tent.”  
“Yenn will probably want it back at some point.”  
Geralt’s voice was more hoarse than usual, and the alarming thought dawned on him that he may perhaps have been more vocal than he had thought.  
“Good thing I have a big strong Witcher to fight her for it.”  
“Hmm. When my legs start working again.”  
Jaskier giggled, and the sound was so melodious and _happy_ that Geralt wondered for the thousandth time why they had waited so long. His hand skimmed Geralt’s chest – taking obvious joy in the reality of finally being allowed such a casual touch, but a frown of concern came over his face, drawing Geralt’s attention.  
“Where’s your medallion?”  
_Ah_.  
“It’s… It’s at your grave.” He winced. “It was…” He sighed, remembering how sad and desperate he had been. “I wanted you to have it.”  
“We should get it back.” Jaskier mused, fingers still tracing Geralt’s scarred chest. “On our way to… Wherever it is we’re going.” Though he didn’t ask, the question was implicit: “ _What now?_ ”  
Geralt thought for a moment. Part of him wanted to take Jaskier back to Kaer Morhen and lock him away where he would be safe forever, but the bard’s wanderlust would never let him do so. They could return to the Path – the prospect of which seemed a lot less lonely now than it ever had before, though the risks were little changed – but he wasn’t ready for a life where his focus was anywhere other than the man at his side.  
“We could go to the coast.” Geralt ventured. “If your offer still stands?”  
Jaskier smiled warmly. “The coast, then.”

They availed themselves of the amenities of the tent for a few more days. Geralt had gone out the following morning with the intention of bringing Roach back, only to find her tethered outside their tent, grazing on a very unnatural patch of grass with an equally unnatural shelter – he’d offered a silent thanks to Yenn for her attentiveness. He and Jaskier talked, they cried, they laughed, and they bedded one another until their bodies were sore and sated (and again after that – there were decades of lost touches to make up for, after all). Jaskier’s contentedness to parade around the tent wearing nothing but Geralt’s scent, the bruises of his fingers on his hips, imprints of his teeth on his neck did nothing to quell Geralt’s desire, and really it was a miracle they ever left at all, but the coast awaited.

They spent a season by the sea making up for lost time, but sooner or later they both became restless for a life long denied them, and they set upon the Path once more as Witcher and barker. Geralt had been hesitant at first – the idea of getting his love back just to throw him into the path of danger once more was a hard one to grasp, but Jaskier was a wildflower: He was no more made for a life within stone walls than Geralt himself. Jaskier weaved the tale of his demise and return into a tale of heroics and romance, and hearing it sung in taverns helped Geralt to be able to think of the darker times with less and less pain (and if, of an evening, he held his bard a little tighter, that was pure coincidence). They wintered each year at Kaer Morhen, and Geralt finally had something he’d never thought possible: A family.

It took ten years for them to realise that Jaskier wasn’t aging.

He was human in every other way – he ate and drank and slept, even bled when he cut himself shaving. But by the time he should be nearing thirty, he hadn’t aged a day. The next winter, he asked Yennefer.  
“Of course he isn’t aging.” She said it as if any other circumstance would have been foolish. “He’s a _memory_.” When Geralt looked at her perplexed, she rolled her eyes. “The djinn didn’t resurrect Jaskier – you should know, you went to the ends of the earth to restore him. He brought him forth from your memory of him.”  
“But memories fade…”  
“Not when they’re right in front of you, they don’t.” Yenn corrected. “His existence comes from you, is fuelled by your love for him. So in a sense, his life is tied to yours.”  
“Then… He’ll live forever?”  
“He will live as long as you do, so as good as.” Yennefer affirmed.  
Witchers weren’t immortal, but they were long-lived – the relief he felt at knowing he wouldn’t have to lose Jaskier a second time was beyond words. 

As he walked back into the main hall, the room sang with the sounds of his brothers’ laughter, and he watched as Jaskier was teaching Ciri one of the courtly dances she should have learned in her life as a princess. He caught his lover’s eye over her shoulder, and his smile beamed back at him. He raised an eyebrow in a gesture that said _‘something wrong?’_ (they had learned many decades ago how to have a conversation across a room without uttering a single word). Geralt responded with a small smile and a shake of his head.  
_‘No. Everything’s perfect’._


End file.
